A deer called Moose: Pennsylvania hunter's trophy 10-point has an unusual antler rack
A York County man shot a deer Saturday that has antlers that resembles a bull moose, just one part of his memorable weekend.
Bryce Slusser, 24, of Seven Valleys, was hunting on the opening day of Pennsylvania's rifle deer season hand oping to encounter a buck that had last been seen on his trail cameras several months ago. “I had him on camera three times in August,” Slusser, a construction worker, said.
The mature deer has thick, palmated antlers, earning him the nickname “Moose."
Slusser's eventful weekend started off when he shot a doe in the morning on the farm owned by a friend of his family. In the afternoon, he returned to his tree stand with a friend; about 20 minutes later, the buck showed up after someone on the neighboring property twice shot at and missed it, Slusser later learned.,
Slusser and his friend heard the nearby shooting and watched in that direction for deer. “I about fell out of the tree stand,” he said about his excitement over getting the deer. He made the shot from about 40 yards with a 7mm-08 rifle.
The hunter who missed the deer walked over to see them and to take a photo of the interesting antlers. The 10-point has a spread between the antlers that Slusser estimates at 14 inches to 15 inches wide.
“He’s my biggest (Pennsylvania) buck,” said Slusser, who has been hunting for more than a decade. The deer will be mounted by a taxidermist with a plaque bearing its nickname.
Kip Adams, chief conservation officer for the National Deer Association, looked at a photograph of Slusser's unique buck. "That’s a great deer. Some palmation is caused by injury and other by genetics. In this case it’s genetics, and that buck had enough nutrition to express it. Congrats to the lucky hunter. I can’t give you a percentage of whitetails with palmated antlers, but it’s pretty low," he said.
The weekend's excitement didn't end there for the hunter. Early Monday, Slusser's wife, Amberlynn, delivered their first child, a son named Brantley.
“It was a crazy weekend," Slusser said.
Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors, and Instagram at whipkeyoutdoors.
This article originally appeared on The Daily American: Deer hunter from York County PA shoots a palmated 10-point
